Well, the video card issues seem to have been resolved, and then in a way that allowed me to hold on to the Sapphire Radeon HD 3850. which is good; this new idea I’m chasing will need as much video performance as possible.

Of course, getting things to work was something of a task. It ultimately required removing all ATI software and drivers from the system, running a program to clean up any driver “remnants,” and then installing new Catalyst drivers (version 8.7) from a hotfix I managed to unearth from the Sapphire website.

Of course, that was only most of a solution.

Neverwinter Nights isn’t exactly a new game, and so does not require or support some of the newer graphics features that modern video cards can deliver. In most cases, of is easy to correct for this; in the case of an ATI card, using Catalyst’s control center to set all the advanced 3D features to be “application controlled” (where possible — “off” where necessary) will typically do the trick.

So I did this.

Neverwinter Nights started up just fine, loaded the test module just fine (a good sign: the module loading process had been where I’d been having issues) and displayed the scenery graphics just fine. But: no character models were visible.

Frak.

A bit of Googling turned up a solution I wouldn’t have expected, however. It seems that with this video card and driver set, it is the case that the Catalyst A.I. is apparently necessary to run in its advanced mode. That struck me as unusual when I first read it, but making the change worked…the characters were visible during the next test run.

Apparently this also has something to do with a setting in the game concerning environmental mapping onto character models; since I had this mode enabled (it maps “real time” reflections onto metallic surfaces on each character’s armour or clothing), that may also have had something to do with the missing models.

Eh, whatever. It works now, which was the goal. ATI drivers have never really played nice with BioWare titles, so I’ll probably have to monitor the situation like a hawk in the future. And there is this pesky issue with the mouse cursor’s repainting that I still have to sort out.

But it works!

I hate being beaten by a computer problem, so it’s nice to have put this one to rest.

Tags: ATI, BioWare, Catalyst, Catalyst A.I., Neverwinter Nights, Radeon HD 3850, Sapphire

So I have a conundrum.

Suspecting that the source of my Windows computer’s instability might be the existing video card (a Radeon 9600 XT), I went and picked up a Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 — pretty much the most powerful AGP graphics card in existence today. (ATI has always been my preferred brand.)

Anyhow, I installed the card and its drivers, and proceeded to test out Neverwinter Nights. That’s where the trouble started: NWN crashed, every time. I did some digging, and found a few hints in various places that the issue may have something to do with ATI’s Catalyst software — certain versions of the control center application evidently conflict with NWN, for example.

Things got worse when I tried to switch Catalyst versions (Sapphire ships the card with what I believe is Catalyst 8.4). Reverting to Catalyst 7.11 (apparently a very stable version) was no help: the driver didn’t support the card. Installing the Omega Drivers — which use Catalyst 7.12 — didn’t work, and for the same reason.

Installing the Catalyst 9.4 update/hotfix from Sapphire didn’t improve things any. And to add insult to injury, the Cayalyst drivers that can be downloaded directly from ATI’s website actually don’t support the card in question (it’s a relatively new card from Sapphire: AGP support and 512 MB of DDR3 memory).

Nothing seems to make NWN work. Which is a pain, as I’d hoped to start work on a new idea that would have greatly benefitted from the enhanced performance the HD 3850 promises.

A bit more searching today furnished me with downloads, from Sapphire, of Catalyst 8.7 through 8.9, and I’m hoping one of these will do the trick. Failing that, I plan to try reinstalling NWN, to see if that could somehow be the issue. I’ve already tried the critical rebuild patch for NWN 1.69.

Failing THAT, I’m thinking of maybe trading the card in for an eVGA nVidia GeForce 6200 LE and another 1GB stick of DDR RAM (this doubling what the system is currently equipped with).

nVidia cards apparently play nicer with BioWare games in general, although the 6200 is not as powerful, by a fair bit, as the HD 3850.

In the end, though, raw power is less important to me than that NWN runs, preferably at a frame rate in excess of 30 at a resolution with at least 600 pixels vertically (720 preferred) on a 16:9 monitor.

Thoughts? Should I even waste time on the HD 3850, or should I just swap it for the 6600 and the RAM? Has anyone else had this issue before and resolved it successfully?

Tags: AGP, ATI, BioWare, Catalyst, DDR, DDR3, eVGA, GeForce 6200 LE, Neverwinter Nights, nVidia, NWN, Omega Drivers, Radeon 9600 XT, Radeon HD 3850, RAM, Sapphire

Pace last week’s progress, the downloads for the Ultima 1 section of the site are now all functional again, and have even been updated in one case: the Ultima Restoration project released new files to bring content from Neverwinter Nights 1.69 into use.

Check thou it out!

Also: I’ve decided to adopt, as a trial for the moment, an informal convention in order to differentiate ‘tag’ links from ‘actual’ links. Links that are not ‘tag’ links will now appear in bold font.

Tags: Neverwinter Nights, Ultima 1

Produced by: Max Breedon
Website: EUO
Releases:
* [drain file 77 url EUO Installer] ([drain file 77 size])
* [drain file 76 url Patcher Update (use only if needed)] ([drain file 76 size])
* [drain file 16 url Launcher (Client Configurator)] ([drain file 16 size])
* [drain file 75 url Map Editor] ([drain file 75 size])
* [drain file 103 url 3D Client] ([drain file 103 size])

Borrowing a fair bit from other RPGs, EUO is intended to be a real-time, single/multi-player, persistent-world RPG…one that looks and plays much like Ultima 4 or Ultima 5. The project site proudly proclaims that those looking for mouse support and Diablo 3-style graphics should seek their fix elsewhere.

EUO uses a Ultima Online-like skill system, without player classes. Combat is based on dice rolling like in Neverwinter Nights (and with more Ultima Online influences, apparently). Although the original EUO did feature a U4-like tileset, the current iteration is completely original (although most monsters and traps will be familiar to Ultima 5 fans). Spells can be cast using either the Ultima 5 runes, or through a simpler list for the less-than-Ultima-proficient.

Also, the game now incorporates the LUA scripting language, meaning that the player can influence the dungeons to a greater degree through certain key actions. Leveling is done at shrines, with stats being upgraded along the same lines as happened in Ultima 6.

The game features over 100 NPCs and over 50 quests, with more being added all the time. And now, a 3D client is even available!

Tags: D&D, Diablo 3, EUO, LUA, Neverwinter Nights, RPG, Ultima, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima Online

I’ve switched the focus of my development efforts a little bit, and am (for the time being) working on implementing interior areas and furniture in Black Dragon City, the capital city of Sosaria in Lost Sosaria. And there’s 8 new screenshots over on the project website demonstrating the fruits of those efforts.

Tags: Lost Sosaria, Neverwinter Nights, Sosaria

I was contacted a while back (an inexcusably long while back, as it happens — my apologies!) by Zen, who passed along a bit of an addon module for Dungeon Keeper based on the first level of the Abyss in Ultima Underworld.

As Zen doesn’t have a website to host the project at for himself, he has made it available to the world via Aiera, and I have (finally!!) created a project entry for it. Check thou it out, O Reader, if you’ve still got those Dungeon Keeper discs tucked away in a drawer or closet!

Also, I have added a download for the Ultima 6 Project’s Milestone 5 release to that project’s entry, so if you haven’t grabbed it from somewhere else already, you can now get it here as well.

Also, other news, courtesy of Dino’s Ultima Page:

Ultima V: Lazarus

Cheerful Dragon has released version 1.29 of his various mods and bugfixes for this remake of Ultima 5. These can be downloaded either at the previous forum link, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

Marzo has released updates to his mods for Exult, for both The Black Gate (Keyring) and Serpent Isle (Fixes). The latest revisions of both can be downloaded through their respective project entries here at Aiera:

• Black Gate Keyring
• Serpent Isle Fixes

Ultima: Iris

Apparently, the project’s developers took home first prize at the Dusmania 10 hobby game development meeting in Frankfurt, Germany. Congrats!

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman has released version 1.01 of his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator. The up-to-date download can be found via the project entry here.

Exult

This Ultima 7 remake has been updated recently — or, rather, the unstable 1.4 version has been updated, as has Exult Studio and its accompanying tools. The Exult team’s plugins for GiMP have also been updated this month, and the whole mess of things can be downloaded via the project entry here.

EUO

This Ultima-inspired game has seen the release of version 0.16 of its rudimentary 3D client, which can be downloaded via the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima Restoration

This comprehensive multi-project has released screenshots of the Kilrathi space station from their remake of Ultima 1. With this completed, they now have all the cities, dungeons, and space stations fully mapped in the game — which, if I do say so myself, is damn good progress!

They’ve also added links to a good couple-dozen Neverwinter Nights modules that I’m going to have to sort through in short order, so…well, it’s nice to know in advance what I’ll be up to for at least part of next week.

Also, the Wing Commander CIC team are attempting to back up what remains of the Origin Systems data library. They are looking for people with experience with this sort of thing, so if you’re one of those people who lives and breathes in backup tapes, you might want to check their project out.

Tags: Aiera, Dino's Ultima Page, Dungeon Keeper, Dungeon Siege, EUO, Exult, Exult Studio, Frankfurt, Germany, Neverwinter Nights, Serpent Isle, Texas Instruments, The Black Gate, Ultima 1, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima 7, Ultima Online, Ultima Underworld, Wing Commander

Ultima Restoration developer Saduj contacted me to let me know that another utility has been added to his team’s collection of Neverwinter Nights modifications — an Ultima-style conversation system to replace the default system in NWN.

By default, the conversation system in NWN is a bit too primitive to support the sort of conversations one has come to expect from an Ultima game — achieving Ultima-style conversations using it requires a lot of node repetition.

At any rate, I’ve added the new conversation system files to the project entry here at Aiera, so please do check them out if you’ve been using any of the other utilities that this team has released…and I have it on good authority that a few people are doing just that.

Tags: Neverwinter Nights, Ultima